2

      “VERY FUNNY.” Marie laughed, a pop of incredulity that came from her gut. She stood to leave. “Are we done? Because I have to get back to the restaurant.”

      “I’m not joking Marie. The executive producers…”

      “Simon, come on,” she chastised. But Simon wasn’t laughing. In fact, he looked uncomfortable. Sweaty. He looks sweaty. And very very serious. Marie sat back down in her chair.

      “Oh, no,” she breathed. “You’re serious.”

      “I thought you would be excited.”

      “Excited?” She shook her head at him in disbelief, trying to get her brain around this nonsense. This was worse than getting fired. This was like being overrun by the enemy. Marie felt a strange itch along her skin, an awareness of her heartbeat as it skipped a beat and then doubled. “This is my show, Simon. I built it. It’s called Soul Food with Marie Simmons, not Soul Food with Marie Simmons and a Cohost. And definitely not Marie Simmons and Van MacAllister.”

      “Well, we haven’t really worked out the name yet….”

      “The name isn’t important!” she cried. “You just said it’s your most popular segment,” she said in a far more reasonable voice. Though it was a bit high-pitched. “I beat out Patrick and Ivan, for crying out loud. Why in the world do you want to mess with a good thing?”

      “Marie?” Simon crossed his arms behind his head, looking at her like she was speaking a foreign language. “Six months ago when you signed on you said you would do anything.”

      “And I did, I did everything you asked. I wore a fruit hat, Simon.”

      Simon laughed, caught her eye and then coughed uncomfortably. “Right, so why not a cohost?”

      “Six months ago I would have wrestled in Jell-O if you wanted me to. But now I have a name and a reputation….” And a very small, very fragile empire to protect, damn it! “And you expect me to just hand it over to Van?” It was ludicrous. Outrageous! And she was beginning to hyperventilate.

      Six months ago there was no alternative to being laid-back. Well, there was. It was called homeless, she thought ruefully. She had nothing to lose then. Marie’s Bistro had barely gotten off the ground, she had taken out another loan and was thinking of selling it all and moving to Peru. Soul Food was changing all of that. And now they want to change my show!

      “Marie, your interest is our interest,” he told her and Marie almost recoiled in shock at what a used car salesman Simon was turning into right before her eyes. “We just want to…enhance your reputation.”

      “How?”

      “We’re looking for male viewers and younger viewers.”

      “Young?” Marie shook her head, confused for a moment until the lightbulb went on. Simon and the rest of the producers had fallen for the hype. “No, come on Simon…”

      “He’s the hip in ‘hip meets homey.’” Simon shrugged apologetically.

      “I’m hip.” The adult voice tried to get her under control, but Marie was far too busy beginning a good and honest freak out to listen. “Homey can be hip.”

      “Only if you’re fifty.”

      Ouch. Marie stood up and began pacing the small area from the bulletin board to the opposite wall. Her blood pressure was climbing through the roof. She put a hand over her heart and felt the hard beat of it against her palm. “Okay, okay I can have a cohost—I can deal with a cohost, but not Van MacAllister. I’ll cook with anybody but him.” That’s good, Marie. Good compromise. Reasonable.

      “Trust me, Marie.”

      “Ha!”

      “I’ve got a good feeling about this, Marie. A good gut feeling.” Like I care about your gut feelings! she thought, beginning to feel sick.

      “It’s an awful idea. We won’t like each other,” she told him, grasping at straws.

      “Have you ever really met him?”

      “Face to face?” she asked, needlessly. She knew she was creeping toward ridiculous but she had actually made a point never to meet Van MacAllister. Call it pride, call it trying to avoid having a criminal record. Whatever it was, she hadn’t actually met him. She could go her whole life hating him from afar.

      “My ears are burning,” a deep, sarcastic voice said from the doorway behind her.

      Simon shot her a look that clearly said “behave,” as he stood to shake hands with Van as he entered the room.

      “Hello, Giovanni,” he said.

      “What’s he doing here?” Marie asked, realizing suddenly that this had been in the works for a while and she was obviously the last to know. Marie’s stomach twisted; she could not have felt more betrayed.

      “I invited him to this meeting,” Simon answered.

      “You’ve been having secret meetings behind my back?” she cried. Nothing upset her like secret meetings. They were childish and she always ended up getting screwed. “Simon, I can’t believe this.”

      “Just hear us out,” Simon urged.

      Deep breaths. Calm thoughts. Beaches. Waves. Puppies. Babies. None of it was working. And actually being in the same room with Van was filling her head with very unadult and unreasonable thoughts. Like arson.

      Van turned and she got her first real look at him.

      Marie was not a woman to get knocked off her feet, though for a moment she was taken aback by the sheer injustice done to him by photographs.

      He still wasn’t handsome, not by a long shot. But he was just standing there and he seemed to take up the entire room. He was dressed in head-to-toe black, which might explain why he seemed so dramatic. He had a whole brooding, smoldering thing that on any other man would have Marie drooling.

      Too bad it’s wasted on this guy, she thought.

      But it was more than the way he looked. Van seemed even sharper than he came off in pictures or from across the street when she spied on him through her windows. Sharp and very focused. It was absurd, but in that moment Van MacAllister, man’s man and general all around pig, looked like a pirate.

      She hoped, fervently, that Van MacAllister had a small penis. The man deserves a small penis.

      “Sorry to interrupt,” he said